This month marks a pivotal change in Australian fashion. For the first time, Australian Fashion Week will be held under the stewardship of the Australian Fashion Council. It’s a big deal, as the Council’s primary purpose is to champion a prosperous (and creative) fashion and textiles industry for the country – an imperative that sits in stark contrast to the event’s previous multinational owner.
The change signals a new direction for the industry, one that’s determined to platform Australian talent on the world stage without them needing to move overseas to find commercial success.
At Fashion Journal, we’ve long believed our local designers are among the best in the world. It’s a driving factor behind our decision to exclusively spotlight local labels in our pages and platforms.
We felt it fitting to use this issue to celebrate the full spectrum of design our country has to offer, spending a little extra time at its fringes. There’s a plethora of raw, creative talent that calls Australia home, beyond what we see in the mainstream. Thanks to these creators, Australian fashion doesn’t fit neatly into a single narrative. They stretch the boundaries of local design, keeping it refreshing and fun.
Within these pages, we highlight the creatively restless who don’t just reflect Australian culture but actively shape it. You’ll find the origin story of a local designer inspired by oldschool rag traders, including her great-great-grandfather. You’ll hear from those who put artistic pursuit over profit, valuing fashion as art above all else. You’ll meet the local shoemakers who, in the face of commercial infeasability, are keeping a dwindling industry alive.
Our team acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the many lands on which this issue was made. Their resilience and creativity inspire us every day.
As the industry shifts, we’re hopeful – not just for what Australian fashion can become but for those who are driving it forward.
Giulia Brugliera Managing Editor
Managing Editor
Giulia Brugliera
Features Editor
Lara Daly
Assistant Editor
Daisy Henry
Subeditor
Cait Emma Burke
Designer
Kelly Lim
Distribution
and Accounts
Frances Thompson
Managing Director
Kris Furst
Founder
Rob Furst
Contributors
Sabina McKenna, James J Robinson, Branden Ruiz, Lochie Stonehouse, Cameron Rains, Geraldine Viswanathan, Arielle Richards, Simone Esterhuizen, Maggie Zhou, Low Productivity, Sienna Barton, Maryel Sousa, Kitty Lloyd, Zebe Haupt, Parth Rahatekar, Simon Fitzpatrick, Daniel Mizzi, Jess Brohier, Jaime Brohier, Mathew Stott, Johnny de Silva, Emily Crowe, Sabrina Raso, Chelsea Nguyen, MaggZ, Helena Inez Abapo, Jordan Hallewell, Meg McConville, Bananas Clarke, Amanda Chadwick, Kirsty Barros, Natasha Bertram, Anthony Caspillo, Gareth Martin, Alana Lucky, Robyn Daly, Xeneb Allen, Eve Louise Gale
Cover
Ana wears PHILLIPA SIGNORELLI dress, GANNI shoes, DINOSAUR DESIGNS
jewellery, LINA YU sculpture, stylist’ s own tights
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Standing out is a strength rather than a weakness. But growing up is a notoriously turbulent process that encourages us to fit in, above all else. Hopefully, as we age, we learn to embrace what sets us apart, seeing the beauty (and power) in our differences. Here, some of the contributors behind this issue reflect on the qualities they were teased about when they were younger and how these helped shape them.
Daniel Mizzi, writer
I used to see this boy for quite some time and he’d often tease me for looking at myself in the mirror. To his credit, it’s one of my less endearing traits. Still, unlike him, I have the good fortune of not having the glass crack at the sight of me. Which quality has made me a greater writer: my vanity or verbosity? Well, they’ve both played a part but I have invariably been, and remain, an incredibly lucky man. I always find a dollar in my pocket, always draw an ace of spades, and my reflection always winks back at me.
Kirsty Barros, stylist
I always dressed differently from those around me and as a consequence, received a variety of responses – some good, some bad. When dressed in my casual whatevers, I would often be asked what the ‘theme’ was. To this day, I’m still asked if I’m in dress-ups. I love an outfit with a sense of humour and a teeny bit of chaos, something that makes you feel good on the inside and out. Comfort and chaos are a good combination.
Evie WatermanWitchell, model
I was teased about being shy. I was told I was too quiet and was asked to repeat myself or to speak up all the time. When I was a teenager, a few girls picked on me because they saw me as an easy target. People treat you differently when you’re quiet. I think it’s made me a bit more gentle, and I notice more about people and the world around me. I also feel like it’s made me stronger and more creative, and I don’t think I’d be who I am without that part of me.
Zebe Haupt, photographer
The list of things I was teased about growing up is long – kids can be brutal and creative. From my name to my background, I copped it all. But one quality I’m proud of is my ability to brush it off. Not letting passing comments stick became my superpower. I’ve always run my own race: travelling solo for tennis, moving to America after university and quitting consulting for photography. I’ve always loved who I am and how I express myself, and that won’t change.
Sienna Barton, writer
Going to an affluent innerMelbourne public school was brutal. Most students were white and from rich families, while I was brown and lived in government housing. In prep or grade one, I was told I couldn’t play kiss chasey because I had “n-word germs”. My mum, a woman with dark Sri Lankan skin, was horrified when she had to explain what it meant. It was the first time I realised I was perceived differently to my white peers but it wasn’t the last. While I’m still coming to terms with being biracial, these experiences fostered my sense of empathy and social justice.
STYLED YOUR WAY.
CARRIED EVERY DAY.
ITALIAN LEATHER SLEEVE
Nothing beats a personal recommendation, especially when it’s from someone as tapped in as Sabina McKenna. The Melbourne-based writer, curator and model has deep roots in the local arts community, creating work that explores conversations about race, family and BIPOC identity. She also has an enviable sense of style. A long-time friend of Fashion Journal, here’s what she’s been wearing, watching and reading lately.
CURATED BY SABINA MCKENNA
Right now in fashion
I’ve been following everything Object Merchant has been doing since attending the biannual ball last year at North Melbourne’s Meat Market. Object Merchant is an experimental retail event that offers performances and a market full of emerging artists and designers. It’s all curated incredibly well. The next event is planned for October, check objectmerchant.com for updates.
In my wardrobe
Sable Jewellery is a relatively new label with the most beautiful designs. Handmade by local creator Scarlett Bronte, the aesthetic is textural and organic. I love her larger custom pieces, from oversized bejewelled florals to twisted and knotted silver earrings and pendants. You can shop Sable Jewellery online or at Solari Studio on Johnston Street in Abbotsford.
What I’m reading
This is an art-lover’s classic. Written by American-Mexican author Jennifer Clement, Widow Basquiat is a memoir based on the diaries of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s longest-term girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk. Basquiat often referred to Suzanne as ‘Venus’. Her painted figure was also a recurring symbol throughout his work. It’s very short, but such a romantic and emotive read that paints a vivid picture of the artist and his life in Downtown New York City, through the eyes of his adoring lover.
Currently carrying
Local writer and model Sienna Barton has been upcycling these incredible little bags covering them in handmade ’90s- and millennialthemed charms under her label, By Sienna. Every item is unique, and she also offers custom pieces, so you can create your own design with whatever nostalgic iconography your heart desires. Find her at @siennatori.
PHOTO BY SULAIMAN ENAYATZADA
PHOTOGRAPHER James J Robinson
STYLIST Branden Ruiz
MAKEUP Lochie Stonehouse
HAIR Cameron Rains
TALENT Geraldine Viswanathan
From
the suburbs of Newcastle
to working alongside icons like Reese Witherspoon and Florence Pugh, Australian actor Geraldine Viswanathan is bringing her unflinching honesty to Hollywood.
WORDS
BY
CAIT EMMA BURKE
The first thing I notice when Geraldine Viswanathan comes into view on my laptop screen is a small picture of a beach that’s resting on the windowsill behind her. After our initial introductory chit-chat, she tells me it’s a photo of Newcastle, the Australian beach town where she grew up.
The 29-year-old actor describes it as “such a beautiful place”, raving about its world-class beaches and laidback atmosphere. In the same breath, she says her childhood there wasn’t without its challenges. “I grew up in the suburbs and it was just very white, that’s kind of the main thing I remember when I think back to growing up in Newcastle. I was the only [South Asian] one at school for a long time, until year nine when another Indian girl came to school, and that got really confusing for people,” she laughs.
From a young age, Geraldine was certain about what she wanted to do career-wise: she wanted to perform. More specifically, she wanted to make people laugh. She recounts with vivid detail a primary school play, the first time she realised she could elicit laughter from an audience. “I always auditioned for the lead roles and never even got a little bit close – it just wasn’t even an option –but then one time, they gave me a funny line and it was a joke about how kids watch TV a lot. I remember getting a laugh and feeling like I had found a bit of a superpower because funny is funny –it doesn’t matter what you look like.”
From that point on, she became obsessed with comedy, devising sketches with her friends in her spare time and eventually, honing her craft on Sydney’s stand-up circuit. While her talent was obvious, getting work as an actor and comedian in Australia proved anything but easy. “It really was at every turn [someone saying]: ‘There’s no place for you here unless it’s about your ethnicity’,” she says. By the time she was in her teens, she knew if she wanted to be considered for a broader range of roles, she’d need to move to America. “When I was 15, I went to Los Angeles and did an acting class. I was really shy and scared because Americans are so confident and outgoing. But then we eventually did a comedic scene, and I think I really found my confidence in the response from the class. I was like, ‘Okay, this is where I need to be, this is what I need to be doing’ and it was fun to have that big goal. It’s like, get the visa and get over there girl,” she laughs. Years of auditioning followed, until 2017, when Hollywood (literally) came calling.
She’d sent in a self-tape for an American comedy film, Blockers, and while she was gearing up to perform at Melbourne International Comedy Festival with her Sydney-based comedy group, Freudian Nip, she was asked to take a Zoom call to discuss the role. Everything moved at breakneck speed from there. “They were like, ‘You need to get on a plane tomorrow to have an in-person session with the director Kay Cannon’…
It was a crazy 48 hours, and then I flew back and was waiting to hear.”
Geraldine had learnt not to get her hopes up (“I had gotten close to things but then the visa was always such a complication”), but this time, the stars aligned. She had landed the role and would start filming in Atlanta a week later.
Blockers put Geraldine on the map. Her turn as high school senior Kayla Mannes was praised by critics, with many deeming her the film’s breakout star. Fast forward to today and she’s based between Los Angeles and New York, steadily building a resume that’s nothing short of remarkable. She’s become one of the most in-demand Australian actors, most recently starring in the Amazon comedy, You’re Cordially Invited, alongside Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon.
When I ask her what it was like to work with two of the most beloved actors of the last few decades, she’s quick to tell me it more than lived up to her expectations. “They’re just the best… I haven’t had that ‘don’t meet your heroes’ moment. Everybody has been as great as I thought they would be.”
Another acting hero she worked with recently was Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who stars alongside her in the latest Marvel film, Thunderbolts. While she can’t tell me much about her role or the film itself (our interview took place months before its release), she gushes about Julia, calling her “the blueprint”.
“I was so nervous because she’s so sharp and smart, and is truly such a queen. I just think that she’s so exceptional and brilliant. What an icon.” She’s less tight-lipped about Oh, Hi!, a romantic comedy she stars in that’s coming out later this year. She describes working alongside actors John Reynolds (who we both agree we have a ‘little crush’ on), Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as a dream scenario. Molly, who plays her best friend in the film, is one of her best friends in real life.
On top of that close bond, she already had a relationship with John and the film’s director, Sophie Brooks. “It really was just like actual friends playing friends in a house in upstate New York. I was like, ‘Well, this is actually my dream,’… It’s a true kind of modern rom-com. We unpack the perils of the softboy and the fuckboy, which I think is a really important conversation to be having in this day and age,” she tells me.
Speaking of friends, Geraldine has the kind of Hollywood inner circle most of us would die to hang out with, comprised of some of the funniest, most in-demand young actors like Rachel Sennott, Patti Harrison, Ayo Edebiri and Molly Gordon.
I tell her I’ve always assumed that making genuine friendships in Hollywood, particularly close female friendships, must come with an added layer of difficulty. If you’re up for the same roles as your mates, or you see their career blow up overnight, comparison and jealousy must be commonplace, right? While she recognises this can be the reality for many in her industry, she says she’s lucky to be in a friendship group built on authenticity and shared interests.
“I have a dream community of people that I respect and admire… I feel really lucky because I know that a lot of people have a hard time in LA. I always laugh because people are like, ‘Why are you in LA?’ and I’m like, ‘Because of the people – my friends’. And that’s not usually how that goes.”
But what about navigating beauty standards in Hollywood? I tell her that even just consuming imagery of actors and seeing their dramatic body and face ‘transformations’ impacts my self-esteem, so I can’t imagine what it’s like to work in the industry. “Yeah, it’s tough. I’m actually so glad you asked me this because I feel like I spent a lot of time being confused as to how people look a certain way. And I’m here to say a lot of people get work done guys – you heard it here first, breaking news!
“I think that there should be a disclaimer that people make or something, because I really was like, ‘Huh?’. It’s subtle too. And I think it’s so perplexing when you’re looking at it and then you add social media into the mix. It just leaves you feeling bad about yourself.”
COVER PAGE
DOLCE AND GABBANA dress, coat and shoes
OPPOSITE PAGE
SCULPTOR top, UNTITLED AND CO bottoms, SCHUTZ shoes, stylist’s own socks
THIS PAGE
UNTITLED AND CO top and
bottoms, SELKIE cardigan DOLCE AND GABBANA shoes, stylist’s own socks
THIS PAGE
SCULPTOR top, UNTITLED AND CO bottoms, SCHUTZ shoes, stylist’s own socks
OPPOSITE PAGE
UNTITLED AND CO top and bottoms, SELKIE cardigan
DOLCE AND GABBANA
shoes, stylist’s own socks
That’s not to say Geraldine hasn’t experimented with the stereotypical Hollywood look. For this shoot with photographer James J Robinson, the pair imagined what it would look like if she forced herself into whitewashed beauty standards. “We wanted to insert ourselves into the world we grew up watching but were never a part of – the early-2000s The Simple Life fantasy – while playing with the trope of the ‘girl who came to LA to make something of herself’,” she explains. “It was also exciting for me to break out of the typical mould I, and other South Asian actresses, are put in: the ‘good student’ or model minority. Why can’t I be a dumb slut too?” she laughs.
Outside of playing dress-ups for shoots, she says she derives a lot of self-confidence from the types of characters she plays as they’re “normal people”. The last thing she wants to do is to set an unattainable beauty standard. “I can go to sleep at night knowing that somebody might feel a bit better because they saw my little tummy – I’m here for tummy representation. Or just, you know, having my natural eyebrows or my natural hair texture. I think there have been trends and expectations of how women present themselves, but I think our bodies are not trends and that real faces are beautiful.”
“We wanted to insert ourselves into the world we grew up watching but were never a part of – the early-2000s The Simple Life fantasy.”
I’m impressed by her candour on a subject so many celebrities are intensely private about. She even tells me she’ll be upfront and “post about it” if she gets any cosmetic work done in the future. As our time comes to a close, I leave the interview feeling like I just made a fun new friend in the women’s bathroom on a night out – one who would loan me her lip gloss, compliment my outfit and make a perfectly timed joke. But that’s the type of person (and actor) Geraldine is: refreshingly honest, quick-witted and disarmingly charming. It makes total sense that Hollywood can’t get enough of her.
Buttcracks, rats and gnarled cloven hoofs fit for Hell’s catwalk – Australian fashion is best when it’s scary. In a small market ripe for metamorphosis, writer Arielle Richards says the great designers are those who sidestep commercial viability to get their freak on.
WORDS BY ARIELLE RICHARDS COLLAGE BY SIMONE ESTERHUIZEN
At Australian Fashion Week in 2001, Sydney-based label Tsubi sent around 200 live rats down the runway, scandalising capital-F-fashion and forever altering the trajectory of the front row’s lives. While the RSPCA investigated the death of one rodent, regrettably flattened by a falling curtain rod, Tsubi (now Ksubi) had established itself as a changemaker –unafraid to scare off buyers, critics and consumers. It was proof a little fear in fashion is good, actually.
But in the decades since, Australia’s biggest runways have seen less of this creative risk-taking. Any desire to effect change seems to be swallowed whole by an obvious imperative to play it safe. Well, I’ll say it: boring.
A handful of designers are challenging this. In 2024, Australian Fashion Week’s prosaic consistency was again ravaged, this time by Speed, Injury, Nicol and Ford, and Wackie Ju. The latter two presentations were both thematically subversive and aesthetically confronting: Nicol and Ford’s Thorn summoned the occult, while Wackie Ju’s collection, Saviour, explored historic colonial violence.
Thorn was inspired by Rosaleen Norton, an artist in midcentury Sydney known as the ‘Witch of King’s Cross’, who was subjugated by the press and hounded by police for her bohemian lifestyle and so-called ‘sexual deviance’. BDSM codes of whips, ropes and their implied prosthetic welts occupied one-third of the show, while the half-human-half-animal imagery in Norton’s paintings occupied another, across flouncing animal print, reptilian leathers and plumed headdresses.
For designers Katie-Louise and Lilian Nicol-Ford, whose work deals with queer and trans history, Norton’s story contained parallels to the persecution of misunderstood subcultures in present-day Australia.
“I think the story of witchcraft and people living by their own rules is something that is still experienced by many minorities in Australia today,” Lilian reflects. “In a way, the show became this big, extended parable for people living on the fringe.”
Saviour, from Melbourne-based designer Jackie Wu, reimagined the 19th-century ransacking of an ancient Chinese temple by the British colony. “She had literal jump scares in the show,” says Lilian, who was among the guests. “There was a point where a model was attacked by performers hiding in the crowd. It was really very visceral, it made you feel something.”
Informed by queer politics and history, both Wackie Ju and Nicol and Ford’s shows cavorted in high fashion’s fantasy land while retaining a distinct currency – with one chopine-clad-hoof planted in community and resistance.
Matea Gluščević, a Melbourne shoemaker who custom-built pieces for Thorn, is another artist whose work pushes boundaries.
She plays with preternatural forms to question the very concept of footwear.
Her signature chopines – towering rocking-horse-shaped clogs dripped in kangaroo leather offcuts – propelled the artist to cult status, long before they adorned Julia Fox.
Work like Matea’s presents hope for the future of Australian fashion, says Katherine Rose, a Sydney-based stylist and creative director. Her work, under the moniker Rose Pure, heroes an ominous cast of alien, goth and juggalo references.
“A lot of these emerging creatives and designers are making me feel something,” she says. “They are challenging norms and by doing so, are making an anti-fashion statement.”
Katherine points to Weilwan designer Corin Corcoran, whose work muses on trauma; Melbourne label Catholic Guilt, that weaves chainmail into luxuriant drapes; and Brisbane designer Gail Sorronda, lauded for her haunting, gothic style. I’d add the devious fetishwear-inspired garments by Pigsuit that ooze the fiendish filth and glamour inherent to the underground.
Scary is best, and not just in clothes. Kick in the Eye’s lustful interplay between hard and soft, spiky and tender – initially inspired by vintage fetish art – has been pushing the boundaries of jewellery design since 2018. More recently, Underground Sundae dared laud the grit of the rat in its designs, alongside discarded dummies and trash charms.
When they’re not trying to appeal to the masses, our best artists have plenty to say, and they’re not afraid to get freaky with their messaging. In doing so, they edge culture forward. “It’s making me feel hope for the industry in Australia, that fashion can be exciting again,” says Katherine.
When was the last time you felt true fear? If you’re a woman, queer or transgender person in Australia, statistically, not that long ago. This sunburnt country is a scary place. Forget the spiders and the snakes – there’s a femicide epidemic, transphobia is on the rise, and there are people with dozens of houses and thousands with none. For those working in creative fields, there’s also a taunting fear of financial instability. Politicians want to eat the arts. They want to gobble up every working artist not on a Bank of Mummy™ stipend and spit the bloody mush out as a tax break for the wealthy.
Scary times. And in tough times for artistry, a big, gluttonous, homogenous bubble of commercial viability threatens to suffocate our emerging talent.
“The market and consumers are scared of things outside the norm,” says Katherine. “Everything must be safe and consumable. When it’s freakier, it’s less easy to buy into or digest, but that’s what makes it art.”
Art must be weird and off-putting because individuality is always a risk. The bulky engine of capitalism crushes outliers first. It sucks out all the life and colour in the name of commercial viability, that cloaked sicklewielding figure known to follow subversive artists around until they succumb to liquidity, or worse, ready-to-wear florals for spring. Or, they move overseas.
“I think Australia is pretty comfortable with the idea that artists in the fashion space have to go overseas to make a name for themselves,” Lilian says. “We’re very grateful and proud to be working in a generational group of designers who really want to create change here. I suppose the fear is that there won’t be enough change to accommodate all the artists who want to be creating in this space.”
Keeping the Nicol-Fords in Australia is the fact that they aren’t “necessarily” commercially driven, a freedom they acknowledge allows them to work in an avant-garde realm. “We’re not there to sell clothing. We’re there to contribute to discourse and challenge what can be done in these spaces.
“We’re very comfortable with people feeling uncomfortable with our work or hating our work,” Lilian says. “At least they’re feeling something,” adds Katie-Louise.
As Katherine puts it: “Humans are freaks! Australia has a dark history. We have creative forms like fashion, art and music to explore these themes, to help express ourselves and connect with others.”
Good art forces us to confront the darkness, the shade that underpins the false harmony of our postcolonial democracy. And discomfort offers a learning opportunity, if we allow it.
The Australia I know is not safe, nor is it polite. It does not toe the line of acceptability and it certainly doesn’t give a shit. If art is both a reflection of culture and a challenge to the status quo, then Australian fashion needs to get scarier. Contort the body, subvert the ‘desirable’ form, revel in the abject horror of existence. Outside the realm of ‘normal’ is where Australian fashion is at its best.
Words by Maggie Zhou
Photography by Low Productivity
The Australian shoemaking industry has experienced some major shifts over the last few decades. What was a thriving industry in the ’80s is now held up by only a handful of local makers. Embarking on a vibe check, writer Maggie Zhou finds that while the industry might be dwindling, the passion is not.
It’s not a stretch to say that everybody knows everybody in Australia’s shoemaking industry. I’m on the phone with Melbourne designer and maker Matea Gluščević when she tells me about Bruce Miller, an 80-year-old master last-maker (lasts are foot-shaped moulds used to construct shoes) based nearby. When I speak to Kacy Heywood, the Melbourne designer behind Kahe, she also slips Bruce into conversation (“He’s an encyclopedia of knowledge”). Darren Bischoff, the founder of Sydney’s School of Footwear, is quick to sing the praises of fellow shoemakers he suggests I interview, Bruce among them.
Despite being a niche and diminishing industry, the local shoemaking scene is tight-knit. It seems to be driven by mutual support, rather than competition. Australian-made shoes are becoming a rarity – an investment piece more than a sensible choice – so who are the people trying to sustain the practice?
The shoemakers I spoke to came to the trade for different reasons. Breeze Powell, co-founder of Melbourne-made footwear label, Post Sole Studio, says she gravitated towards the trade “out of necessity” through living with a shorter leg. Kacy recalls being three years old and desperately wanting to make shoes – she recurrently dreamt that her playhouse was a shoe factory.
For aspiring shoemakers today, a one-year course is the standard further education on offer. More specifically, RMIT’s Certificate IV in Custom-Made Footwear is the only dedicated tertiary qualification in the country. The Melbourne-based university tells me that between 2017 and 2023, there have been 80 completions of the certificate (though almost double the number of enrolments).
Breeze had a go at the course in 2007 but didn’t end up completing it, instead getting a job as an apprentice at a shoemaking company in Clifton Hill. Back in the late 2000s, Matea completed a TAFE certificate in custom-made footwear in Adelaide. She tells me the course was later cancelled because of the lack of job outcomes. Her TAFE, along with others in the country, has ceased providing footwear-specific certifications.
It wasn’t always like this. Darren founded the School of Footwear, an independent shoemaking school, in 2010. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at a government school in Ultimo learning about the craft of shoemaking, without spending a cent. Darren was one of the last students to go through the program, completing all the shoemaking courses “as they were deleting them from the curriculum”, he jokes.
Regardless of how these makers came to the profession, they all understand the current struggle of making shoes in Australia. “I hate to say this, but I doubt very much whether the footwear industry, as in production, will ever come back to this country,” Darren says.
If anyone can give me a temperature check on local shoemaking, it’s Bruce. One of the old guards of the Australian industry, he started in the trade in 1960 and can still recall its heyday 65 years ago. By his estimate, approximately 80 million pairs of shoes were made in Australia yearly from the late ’80s to the early ’90s. He says his company was making about 20,000 pairs of lasts per year in the mid ’90s. But in 2014, he stopped bulk-making them when that number dwindled to around 500.
Bruce points to the economic reforms by the Hawke-Keating governments in the ’80s and ’90s which dramatically lowered the tariff on imports as the “beginning of the end of the industry”.
“The next day, all the big factories closed,” Darren says of the tariff announcements. “I just wish that day didn’t happen.”
Even though he’s technically retired, Bruce works as a consultant and occasional last-maker for some shoemakers, like Kacy and Matea. “People say, ‘Why do you keep working?’... It’s so hard to see an industry just disappear that used to be so vibrant.”
Would it be possible to reinvigorate local shoemaking here?
Those in the industry are pessimistic. Machinery has changed, and different training would be needed to set up a new production line.
Bruce, Darren and Matea are part of an old-school cohort of shoemakers who use paper and pencil to sketch and design shoes, rather than computer-aided design (CAD).
“The ones that might have been able to pick it up are the old blokes, but they’ve all retired or [are] dead,” Darren says. “There’ll be nobody to help us work out how to run this situation.”
Matea disagrees, noting there are young, intelligent people who could pick it up. Instead, she thinks the issue lies with its backers. “Who is setting these hypothetical factories up? Who has the money, interest and knowledge to do that? Where’s the incentive?” she asks.
Shoemaking, as it stands in Australia, is expensive, time-consuming and laborious. Tim Gleig, the Melbourne-based founder of Two Five Footwear, estimates it takes 36 to 48 uninterrupted hours to make a pair of Two Five shoes, so he allows three to six weeks for a pair to be made.
For Matea, it’s a three-month process for a custom pair of shoes, from conception to delivery. There’s back-and-forth liaison, fittings and multiple mock-ups. Unlike tailoring for apparel, stitches and silhouettes can’t be easily changed with shoes, so alterations can sometimes mean starting from scratch.
Post Sole Studio, which Breeze founded alongside Myra Spencer, is one of the few remaining Australian footwear labels manufacturing women’s contemporary shoes locally (as much of what’s made here is predominantly industrial work boots). A small team of three, the label is currently made up of Breeze, her sister Ruby, who helps out with production, and Yoshi, who manages customer service and the store. “Everyone touches each pair we make,” Breeze says.
They’re now in their eleventh year and operate as a well-oiled machine. “Every fortnight we collate orders, then cut and prep the uppers before sending them out for stitching,” Breeze says. “Once they come back, we do more prep – lacing, gluing, attaching bits and pieces, and making the insole. Then, the uppers are lasted, prepped for the sole to be applied, and finally finished.”
Despite the tight production, it’s far from an easy job. Breeze has seen countless small-to-medium-sized factories close down or move offshore over the years, as materials have become difficult to source locally and prices have skyrocketed.
KACY HEYWOOD
From her time at Post Sole Studio, Myra is pragmatic when it comes to shoemaking in Australia. Although making local would be her top choice if the industry still existed in the way it did in the ’80s and ’90s, she’s become more open to offshore solutions.
“I think, realistically, the only way forward for most brands to manufacture footwear is offshore,” she says. “It’s not something I want to encourage but the infrastructure at this point no longer exists locally… I don’t think it’s as simple as saying Australian manufacturers don’t have the skills to produce the same quality shoes. But the demand hasn’t been there for the industry to flourish, and as a consequence, the skilled labour that did exist has, and is, slowly dying out.”
Many makers who started in bespoke shoemaking have pivoted and stretched their creative endeavours to make it more viable. Kacy is one of them. Despite her three-year-old dreams, her fashion label is now predominantly known for its unexpected twists on Australian-made, ready-to-wear apparel.
In 2018, she released two pairs of handmade shoes. “I didn’t make any money off them. The cost of actually making the footwear, compared to what people [were] willing to pay, just wasn’t worth it,” she says. Kacy still loves shoes and releases footwear under Kahe, only now the pieces are manufactured overseas.
Matea is another creative who has switched up her offerings. Despite receiving press coverage from appearances at Australian Fashion Week and an endorsement from Julia Fox (a fan of her chopine shoes), Matea found the hype didn’t translate to tangible orders. “Due to extremely minimal sales, I essentially haven’t been able to have even a quarter of a minimum wage for three years, let alone make a profit.”
She now runs Cakey Sportsman – an eccentric ready-to-wear label offering apparel, accessories and footwear – alongside her existing custom shoemaking practice.
BREEZE POWELL
Matea came to this new venture by recognising that she wanted to take up more “visual real estate”;shoes only make up so much of an outfit. While the label is currently made in Melbourne, this will soon change, with plans to switch to mostly offshore production.
“I’m doing Cakey Sportsman footwear because I still want to be designing my own stuff but I do want to make it more accessible,” Matea says. While she finds it frustrating “and sad, to be honest” that she has to make her footwear overseas in order to turn a profit, she tells me she’s still excited about her label’s future.
Bruce echoes this. “A lot of people, like Matea and others, have got to have a passion for it and be prepared to work for very little income. The only people that might survive are not going to be making shoes, they’re going to be designing styles.”
“You’re not going to buy a yacht out of bespoke shoes,” Darren adds, drily. His School of Footwear doesn’t exist to up-skill people professionally (“I tell students straight up, there is not a job to be had”). Instead, it exists to give people a chance to make shoes they love. “There’s still a lot of us around, hand-makers everywhere,” Darren says. “I’ve got a couple of boys here that make sneakers; they sell them to their mates.”
For many of these creatives, shoemaking is more of an art form than a means to cover one’s feet. Melbourne maker Alison Pyrke’s shoes – or “footwear propositions” as she dubs them –are experimental and delicate. In lieu of shoppable collections, her footwear is mainly limited to concepts and prototypes.
“I have primarily allowed my footwear practice to be a space to explore ideas, without the restraint of commercial viability. I have done small production runs of some pieces, but try to be mindful of my market contributions,” she says. “I have always prioritised making as a central part of my practice… I would love to be able to share facilities with others so that a culture of doingit-ourselves may continue to be cultivated.”
There will always be people who love shoes, who’ll then go on to try and make shoes. While our footwear manufacturing industry has all but bitten the dust, the art of shoemaking is still alive. Its beating heart exists in its makers’ creativity and painstaking patience. And that cannot be stamped out.
ALISON PYRKE
EXPOSURE THERAPY
What does wearing a ‘revealing’ outfit mean these days? Writer and curve model Sienna Barton takes a look at the Australian designers playing with the art of the tease, and asks: What bodies are allowed to be on show?
Arevealing outfit can make or break a woman’s career. As someone who grew up in the early 2000s, my understanding of what’s seen as ‘revealing’ or ‘appropriate’ is quite warped. When Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman wore sheer dresses on the red carpet, it was deemed chic. Around the same time, Janet Jackson performed at the 2004 Super Bowl, where Justin Timberlake famously ripped off part of her bustier, revealing a jewellery-adorned nipple on live television. Her decades-long career was tainted and has never truly recovered.
Over 20 years on from the nipple debacle, there’s still a double standard when it comes to nudity in public arenas. Primed by a culture that tells us any publicity is good publicity, stunt dressing has only become more prevalent, and the reactions to it more divided. In the days that followed Bianca Censori’s coat-drop moment on the 2025 Grammys red carpet, revealing a completely transparent dress with no underwear, the internet was abuzz.
Many social media pundits saw her outfit –a Yeezy creation aptly named ‘The Invisible Dress’ – as exploitative, speculating that the notably silent Censori was simply serving as her husband’s accessory. Some theorised the stunt was part of an elaborate humiliation kink, with Ye getting off on his wife being publicly debased. Others lauded her for #freeingthenipple, while an angry chorus of concerned citizens bemoaned a woman baring her body in its entirety on the world’s stage.
In an opinion piece for The Conversation, Senior Lecturer at RMIT, Harriette Richards, explores how fashion statements like Censori’s dress prompt conversations about misogyny and the policing of women’s bodies. “Some previous instances of naked dressing have been cause for celebration. They seem to have symbolised a feminist victory, indicating the power of women to take control of their appearance and their bodies,” she writes. Some but not all. When the only bodies on show are thin and meticulously manicured, is it really a victory?
The art of the tease
A core criticism of Censori’s dress was that it left nothing to the imagination. There was no ‘nude illusion’, just nude. Our cultural obsession with near-nakedness can be chalked up to the ‘Theiss Titillation Theory’. Named after American costume designer William Ware Theiss, it speculates that a person’s (usually a woman, let’s be honest) proximity to nakedness allows for the viewer (usually a man) to fantasise
WORDS BY SIENNA BARTON COLLAGE BY SIMONE ESTERHUIZEN
about the possibility of clothing falling off. In other words, the anticipation of what’s underneath a lacy bra or a low-cut dress is somehow sexier than nakedness itself.
Baring skin is nothing new, but fashion labels have become more creative in finding these ‘gaps’ to showcase. While we’ve seen different variations on cleavage, sideboob and underboob, many Australian designers are experimenting with sheer styles and cut-outs to expose the unexpected. Take Christopher Esber’s signature gowns that reveal puzzle pieces of skin, Ramp Tramp Tramp Stamp’s ‘logo removal’ T-shirts that frame a window of chest just above the cleavage, Kahe’s jeans with cut-out slices at the hips, or Catholic Guilt’s bespoke chainmail piece worn by Julia Fox at the NGV Gala, complete (or, incomplete) with a butt-baring cut-out.
I’ll always be subjected to the opinions of others,” she says. “With this in mind, I personally find owning my own objectification – and using clothes as a way of reclaiming my visual identity – to be both powerful and healing.”
“For people who don’t conform to the ideals as defined by the male gaze, the act of wearing anything, let alone something ‘revealing’, is political.”
Designer Ella Jackson of Catholic Guilt says she liked the juxtaposition of having a material traditionally used as armour against bare flesh. “It feels vulnerable, having that much skin on display, but something about using steel and stones as a material makes it feel a bit tougher and punk, and like a bit of a middle finger to modern-day societal norms.”
Not every body
There’s a lot of fun to be had with risqué sheer clothing and creative cut-outs, but who gets to wear them? It seems only a very narrow body type is celebrated for wearing these styles, and it’s still dictated by the male gaze. Social constructs like Theiss’ Titillation Theory focus on what men find desirable, and it’s usually men who dictate the policies that punish a woman’s nakedness on social media, especially if she exists in a larger body.
In an effort to subvert that gaze, a growing chorus is calling out Instagram for favouring thin, partially-clad women while censoring larger bodies, while other local creatives are using revealing clothing as a form of resistance. Sydney-based designer Niamh Galea, founder of the size-inclusive label Ramp Tramp Tramp Stamp (and herself a size 20), tells me she’s been reflecting on her body’s place in the world ever since she was a young girl, adding this can be a common experience for women, queer people and people of colour. For so many of us, particularly those who went through puberty early, our clothing choices were initially rooted in rejecting desirability.
“I’ve tried fighting against my body, covering it up, but have come to a place of accepting that no matter how I try to hide it,
Recently, actor and model Milo Hartill was accosted by a stranger for not covering up their body while riding on a Melbourne tram. Milo, who (like me) self-identifies as fat, was wearing a crop top and pants, leaving a small panel of flesh uncovered, which the stranger poked with their walking stick, remarking that her clothes were “too small” for her. She joked, “It wasn’t even like I was wearing clothes that were revealing, you know, I often wear a bikini and heels and call it a day. I was like ‘Diva, if this is offensive to you, wait ’til you see what I wear most of the time.’”
Radical reveal
For people who don’t conform to the ideals defined by the male gaze, the act of wearing anything, let alone something ‘revealing’, is political. Like the reactions Milo gets about their outfits on the tram, Niamh says her label receives a similar response. “Sometimes I’m shocked at how radical my clothing is interpreted as.”
I wonder if the response to Censori’s dress might have been different if her body was less voluptuous. It seems to me that a culture that celebrates Coperni spraying a dress onto a naked Bella Hadid is one that would embrace The Invisible Dress. Where is the line between classless and chic? If Janet Jackson had been a white woman, would she have been able to bounce back?
Society is uncomfortable with a woman’s nakedness, but even more so with nakedness from people who don’t fit supermodel beauty standards when it comes to body size and shape. In this way, wearing revealing clothing can be a radical act of resistance, a sentiment Niamh agrees with. “By openly and shamelessly being yourself, and embracing your body by showing it off, you’re allowing people to slowly but surely embrace themselves. I hope that when people see me strutting down South Dowling with my muffin top out and in an asymmetrical sheer top that makes my boobs look lopsided, they might think ‘I can accept myself too’.”
Natural Selection
Words by Maryel Sousa Presented by
Careful selection of natural materials was a core step in creating Muji Labo’s latest collection. Here’s why the label prioritises fibres from the earth.
The rampant use of synthetic materials by ultra-fast fashion brands is a major contributor to global pollution.
The manufacturing, washing, transportation and disposal of synthetic clothing contribute up to 35 per cent of microplastics found in the ocean, and the depletion of fossil fuel resources. The consequences are felt from the North Pole to Antarctica, seeping into our drinking water, our food chain, and ultimately, our daily lives.
In response to these alarming statistics, the ‘slow fashion movement’ has turned its focus to responsible consuming: buying less, buying pre-loved and practising good garment care. But there’s another piece to the puzzle: choosing natural fabrics. Unlike the synthetics that will outlive us all, natural fibres follow the rhythm of life. They’re grown, worn and, when it’s time, they return to the earth to decompose. It’s poetic, really.
As the industry shifts toward more sustainable practices, brands are increasingly looking to natural materials and their benefits to our bodies and the planet. Muji is one such example. Through its premium apparel range, Labo, the innovative Japanese retailer is highlighting the beauty of premium, natural fibres.
“Careful selection of materials for all Muji product design is a core pillar of our brand philosophy,” explains Muji Australia’s General Manager of Marketing and Public Relations, Vincent Tang. “Our materials not only showcase our unwavering celebration of natural fabrics and commitment to minimising waste, but also must provide a functional benefit to the wearer rather than an embellishment.”
Newly reintroduced into Australia, Muji Labo features recycled wool, Lyocell silk, khadi, and washi, a traditional Japanese paper fibre. Each has a purpose, with unique properties to offer. If you’re ready for your winter wardrobe to be au naturel, the Muji Labo range is available now. Here are a few materials worth looking out for.
Washi: You may have encountered washi paper in a traditional Japanese home interior (those gorgeous paper screens!).
Traditionally crafted from the fibres of the paper mulberry plant, washi has become an unexpected contender in the arena of natural textiles. It biodegrades rapidly – 82 per cent of composted
washi can degrade within just 35 days – so it’s planet-friendly from the beginning to the end of its lifespan. When cut into delicate strips and blended with an organic cotton yarn, washi lends itself to a lightweight, breathable fabric perfect for winter layering.
Recycled wool and cashmere blends: Both wool and cashmere are excellent insulators – their tight fibres trap body heat to create a consistent thermal barrier against the cold. Whether sourced from goat herders on the Eastern Mongolian Plateau or nomadic Tibetan yak farmers, cashmere and wool are highly sustainable, natural materials that biodegrade quickly and return essential nutrients to the earth.
When repurposed, they become an even easier choice for winterwear designs. Muji Labo’s current offering of recycled blends hails from the Bishu region in Japan, where the fibres are crushed and respun, given a new life for another season. Much of the collection’s wool, as well as its cotton, is left undyed, celebrating the fibre’s natural beauty and reducing the natural resources required by the dyeing process, as well as waste produced. Minimising production processes in this way is a key part of Muji Labo’s sustainable design philosophy.
Lyocell silk: For the most bone-chilling winter days, there’s Lyocell silk innerwear, made from the wood pulp of eucalyptus trees through a closed-loop, organic solvent-spinning process. Often, Lyocell producers sustainably source materials from certified origins to protect vulnerable environments from deforestation. Like silk, Lyocell boasts excellent moisture-wicking properties, meaning the fabric remains dry against your skin, even as you sweat. By keeping you dry, it better retains warmth when you step out into the cold again.
Khadi: As an organic cotton weave, khadi already scores well on the sustainability scale. But what makes khadi unique is that it takes less energy to produce. Khadi has a low carbon footprint because it’s woven by hand – specifically by artisans from Kolkata, India, to whom the fabric holds deep cultural significance. It’s a rugged weave that can vary in texture and thickness, keeping you warm during winter months and cool in the summertime.
This article was made in partnership with Muji | muji.com.au
Beloved Melbourne hairdresser Madison Finn is known for her vibrant colours and unconventional cuts, or in her words, “out-there hair that’s wearable”. Naturally, her North Melbourne salon is a core destination for local, fashion-adjacent creatives. “It’s hot, cool, sexy and fun, all at once,” she says. And who wouldn’t want to be all those things? Eager to inch a little closer into Madison’s world, we asked for a glimpse inside her kit.
AS TOLD TO LARA DALY IMAGE VIA @MADISONSWORLD22
Y.S.Park Combs
Okay, I’m a colourist… I have to be a comb girl! These are the best combs hands down. I love the fun colours and sleek look, and they work so well. I have about five or six Y.S.Park tail combs alone, they’re all my babies! My brain wouldn’t function right without one of these in my hands.
Wella Eimi Just Brilliant Shine Pomade
Just Brilliant is a shine pomade with a tiny bit of hold and a thousand ways you can use it. It’s really malleable, so it can be used for ‘piecing’ out the ends of a blow wave or for a slick, moveable texture.
Sebastian Re-Shaper Hairspray
Hairspray is back in a big way, and this is my favourite. If you want to wear a polished look one day, and a totally different look the next, this product is your girl! As the name suggests, it’ll mould and hold any shape you need, as it’s not too heavy and is easily brushable.
Ghd Chronos Styler
One tool to go to heaven with is the Ghd Chronos. This tool has so many ways to use it, I probably don’t even know them all! It’s easy to use, plus it’s sleek and small to take around. Chef’s kiss.
Wella Eimi Sculpt Force Sculpting Gel
Who can’t live without a gel? This is the gel you need, it’s so strong and will not move for days. This has really only got one main use, but it’s the one to use when you need that sexy, slick look that stays all night.
VISIONARIES
Working in fashion media offers access and insight to a talented collective of original and creative thinkers. This group has inspired Visionaries, a publication housed within Fashion Journal and made in collaboration with Specsavers that squares our focus on three Australian women whose artistic vision is unmatched.
The coming pages are dedicated to these three thinkers. Throughout, each wears the Mimco Eyewear range available exclusively at Specsavers, which offers elevated, modern frames across both optical and sunglasses styles. The release expands the brands’ first collaboration. Like the Visionaries themselves, Mimco and Specsavers have introduced something new to the fashion landscape with their partnership.
As you read more about these women, you’ll see how each brings a unique lens to her work, adding an original voice to a landscape that often rewards sameness. Each prioritises quality craftsmanship, originality and style, three principles mirrored across the Specsavers Mimco Eyewear range. Explore the collection below or find it in-store and online at specsavers.com.au, where it’s now available.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Zebe Haupt
Mimco 14
Mimco 13
Mimco 12
Mimco 15
Mimco Sun RX 08
Mimco Sun RX 09
Mimco Sun RX 07
I LOVED MY JOB. I was working in experiential production, always involved in really major events, bringing brand activations to life when Covid hit. I watched my career disappear in a matter of days. My only saving grace was that I’d started a side business baking cakes, Miss Trixie Drinks Tea.
At the time I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll try to convince people to eat cake when everyone is cancelling their celebrations.’ I created cakes with pun messages like, ‘This shit is bananas’ or ‘You’re one in a melon’. It really took off. I wouldn’t use the word ‘viral’, but it definitely went from side hustle to full-time business very quickly at a time when a lot of people were really struggling.
My now-business partner Alisha Henderson (of Sweet Bakes) messaged me and we began talking about a shared kitchen, but I had this greater vision. I knew putting on physical events in Australia is incredibly expensive and that’s how our business Co.Bake was born.
We thought, ‘Let’s make a space that looks amazing, let’s do the heavy lifting. Then brands can roll in with their goods to sell, or
do a workshop, or whatever they want.’ I think it’s earned the respect of my peers. They should respect it, because this is a concept that hasn’t been done before.
I’ve had so many comments from people like, ‘How can you share a kitchen with one of your competitors?’ and that’s just the most boring argument to delve into. Some of the best creative projects and products are born from collaboration; I’ve been loving Mimco’s collaboration with Specsavers. It’s allowed the brand to engage with a whole new market of glasses wearers and given Specsavers customers access to a really elevated, fashionforward product.
Right now, I’m enjoying the big, wire frames available exclusively at Specsavers. I like having fun with my opticals. Because I wear fun, colourful clothing, people sort of expect that. Looking forward, my focus is on growth. That doesn’t necessarily mean getting physically bigger, it might mean working with different people in different ways or introducing different products. I always want to be at the forefront of pioneering styles.
CHRISTINE AT SUKU HOME
CHRISTINE LAFIAN just wants you to have fun. The multi-hyphenate creative is the force behind Suku Home, one of Australia’s most distinctive lifestyle brands. First launched as an online bedding store, Suku is now home to a tight but sought-after collection of pyjamas, apparel and bedwear boasting kaleidoscopic colours and striking, hand-drawn prints.
From the get-go, Christine envisioned Suku as a welcome respite from monotous mainstream interior trends. Founded in 2013, the brand took shape amid the hyper-minimalist and greige aesthetics of the era. “I felt like there wasn’t much representation of exciting or playful homewares,” she says. “The options were so plain and uninspiring, and I just couldn’t bring myself to dress my home in something so simple.
“I thought, ‘I spend so much of my time at home. So why shouldn’t it feel just as stylish and vibrant as the way I dress myself when I go out?’”
This fashion-forward approach led Christine to launch linen and homewares that sat proudly outside market trends. Her designs were instantly identifiable: bold, joyous and vivid, reminding us that, much like we experiment with our wardrobes, we don’t have to take home decorating too seriously. Her work quickly caught the eye of a group of loyal followers and it wasn’t long before word caught on. As her fan base expanded, so did Suku’s offering.
With the introduction of an apparel range several years later, Christine flipped the script. Her Wear collection carried the comfort and playfulness of Suku Home to a sea of breezy summer dresses, cotton shirts and colourful bamboo pyjamas designed to be worn outdoors. She’s since dabbled in accessories and swimwear too.
For Christine, craftsmanship is an important piece of the puzzle. Each Suku piece is hand-dyed, hand-painted and handsewn by Suku’s talented team. This means print placement varies, making each Suku piece one of a kind. Beyond face value, the brand’s bed linen is crafted using Suku’s own buttery bamboo formula, with a custom weft and weave, chosen for its super soft texture and durability.
Given her focus on the home, it’s no surprise Christine takes inspiration from her childhood. Raised in Indonesia, she wanted to bring the colours and patterns of indigenous Indonesian cultures into homes here. She takes cues from traditional pattern work and integrates this with her own creative sketches, before turning to skilled Indonesian craftspeople. “Most of my designs start as a scribble on my iPad before they turn into a fabric drawn by artisans,” Christine explains.
Christine’s time spent returning to her homeland, and travelling beyond it, have been essential to honing her designs. “I think you can find inspiration if you open your eyes and pay attention to things, rather than scrolling through your phone,” she explains. “I try to make sure to take time off to leave [Melbourne] every now and then… Sometimes the answer is just outside your comfort zone.”
As an eclectic combination of colour and comfort, Suku follows the lead of Christine’s personal style. As a glasses-wearer, finding frames that resonate with her unique taste has been essential. Recently, she’s been accessorising with the Mimco Eyewear collection exclusive to Specsavers. She’s opting for statement sunglasses and lilac-toned frames that pair neatly with Suku’s current pastel tones.
Armed with new eyewear, Christine has her sights set firmly on the future, with a plan to return to Suku’s roots. She surprised her customers last year by announcing she would be closing the brand’s Dream Baby flagship store on Gertrude Street and downsizing to a smaller space.
For Christine, putting Dream Baby to bed was an important decision to realign the brand with its values. “We are returning to our core focus this year, prioritising loungewear and bedwear. Moving from a retail store to a showroom has given us the space to refocus on what truly matters,” she says.
Now in a smaller showroom on Collingwood’s Wellington Street, Christine is using the opportunity to streamline Suku’s operations. “Managing a larger store was taking so much of our energy, and we realised we were often creating products just for the sake of filling the shelves,” Christine says. “It wasn’t a sustainable way to run the business in the long-term. With the showroom model and limited opening days, we can slow down and approach things with more intention and care.”
COURTNEY AT LOLA VARMA
COURTNEY ILLFIELD took an unconventional path into bridalwear. Beginning her career as a fashion and wedding photographer, the Melbourne-based creative made her foray into wedding dresses after hearing the frustrations of brides-to-be.
“Ten years ago, there was nothing on the Australian market that was non-traditional in aesthetic or approach,” explains Courtney. “I found myself in conversations with many women struggling to find a wedding dress that felt aligned to their day-to-day style, that didn’t fit the normal mould of a traditional bride.”
In Western cultures, the ‘normal mould’ of bridalwear had remained practically unchanged for centuries. In 1840, Queen Victoria donned a white satin, lace-trimmed gown to marry Prince Albert, forging a fashion tradition that has managed to persist, despite how radically our understanding of marriage and weddings has shifted.
This dissonance spurred Courtney to start her bridalwear label, Lola Varma. Since 2016, she’s dedicated her work to those who don’t want to be bound by convention. “The women who [don’t] connect with the common sweep of garments, the traditional details, the dated silhouettes,” she says. “Part of the creativity is finding what isn’t being done. There is so much repetition within the industry.”
Through Courtney’s eye, the boundaries of bridalwear get redrawn in surprising and original ways. From sculptural looks and magically draped silks to minimalist two-piece sets and frilled gloves, each piece feels contemporary and at home in the wider fashion landscape.
Courtney’s approach to design is unconventional; she looks to films, vintage fashion, old-school photography and even the plants growing in her garden for inspiration.
However, it’s her actual vision she considers most important for her creative process, as her role demands a strong eye for detail. Her style is effortlessly cool (she favours Jonathan Anderson and The Row) and as a glasses-wearer, she’s particular about the frames she likes. For her day with Fashion Journal, she chooses pieces from the Mimco Eyewear range exclusive to Specsavers, from timeless black statement frames to a subtle and sleek wire-framed design.
Similar to her designs, Courtney has set up Lola Varma’s showrooms in stark contrast to the wider industry, prioritising a bride’s comfort and involvement in the process. Each of her brickand-mortar locations (found in Fitzroy and Redfern) is a departure from the pomp we tend to associate with the world of weddings, boasting chic, modernist furniture and a refreshingly un-bridal aesthetic. “They’re pared-back and homely. No chandeliers, no champagne,” explains Courtney. “We serve tea and offer a service for the bride that wants something different.”
Notably, Lola Varma has also merged its showroom and workshop into a single space. Brides are invited to see the brand’s garments take life before their eyes, from pinning to stitching and beyond. “It’s really important to know where your clothes come from… There aren’t many clothing labels left in Australia producing entirely onshore [so] I’m always proud of this accomplishment,” says Courtney.
Perhaps what’s most visionary about Lola Varma’s approach is her commitment to comfort. It’s a somewhat radical move in the context of the bridal industry, but Courtney’s years as a wedding photographer afforded her a unique understanding of the modern bride and their needs.
“Over the years of photographing weddings, and specifically brides, all around the world and in an array of cultures, I realised that comfort is paramount to being present on such a significant day. Not just comfort within an outfit but comfort within yourself and your skin. That’s the foundation of Lola Varma, encouraging brides to search for comfort, not trends nor obligations.”
WORDS BY PARTH RAHATEKAR PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMON FITZPATRICK
When searching for the perfect outfits for their wedding day, Melbourne couple Christopher Lengyel and Keith Small enlisted the help of local label Nofunović to rewrite the rules.
How you dress for your wedding day might make or break your experience – it can dictate how the whole day is remembered, after all. For traditionalists, the rules are set: a white dress, a black suit. But what happens when the couple wants to break them? For Melbourne-based designer Jayden Trifunović of the label Nofunović, the answer is simple: Love leads the process.
This story starts in November 2024, when Jayden’s friend Christopher Lengyel and his fiancé, Keith Small, spotted Nofunović’s Harmonika set online: a long-sleeve top and shorts made from Japanese plissé fabric. They were preparing for their wedding, set for March, and had found their ‘gettingready’ outfits.
“It showed the style we wanted for the day, rather than simply getting ready in pyjamas or gowns,” says Christopher. With one step sorted, the real predicament still lingered. What the pair wanted for their wedding looks was so specific, they found it hard to articulate to a designer. “This, at the time, was the biggest stress in our wedding planning,” notes Christopher.
Knowing the grooms personally, Jayden suggested they come in for a chat to discuss possibilities. “Chris and Keith wanted a mix of traditional and non-traditional menswear, which aligns with Nofunović perfectly. I thought this would be a great time to introduce a pair of trousers I’ve been wanting to make.
“The inspiration for the tops came as I was sealing envelopes, and I thought it would be cute to present both of them as each other’s love letter,” he says. Jayden had the idea to replace the
zipper at the back of the tops with rouleau loops and buttons from traditional bridal gowns. “Usually, the bridal party is responsible for buttoning up the back, but I wanted to give Chris and Keith their own tradition.”
Both looks featured visible French seams along the outside of the jackets, rather than being hidden within the lining. “They were designed to flow through Christopher’s blazer and end at Keith’s, giving them their own unique looks that still came together as one.”
For a sentimental touch, Jayden enlisted the help of Melbourne-based Dirty Needle Embroidery to have the words ‘a lot, a lot’ hand-embroidered on each sleeve. “‘It’s something we have always said to each other, ‘I love you a lot, a lot’,” says Christopher.
The words were embroidered in a vibrant cobalt blue, a nod to the blue threads woven through both suits and a spin on the bridal tradition of ‘something blue’.
For their third outfit change of the day, Jayden created matching mesh tops and trousers fit for the afterparty. “I love that we got to incorporate a mesh fabric into a queer wedding, which feels so correct,” he says.
As an independent designer, it’s hard to toe the line between commercial viability and fashion that reinvents the rules. “I’m so proud that the biggest custom project I’ve taken on so far in my career was something so meaningful and in line with the ethos of Nofunović.”
Reflecting on the journey, Christopher and Keith say their confidence came from their outfits: “The wedding wouldn’t have been so special without them.”
Words by Daniel Mizzi
meets the woman who built Karlaidlaw from the ground up.
You can’t talk about Melbourne fashion without mentioning her name, and you certainly can’t dress the Fitzroyalty without a pair of her Spider Pants. After being told by a local oracle five years ago that she was one to watch, writer Daniel
Mizzi
Photography by Zebe Haupt
If you find yourself in Fitzroy, take a wander down George Street. Here, if you’re as keenly observant as I, you may come across a bright blue door, decorated with buttons of all shapes and varieties. Push against it, and you’ll come to realise the bejewelled facade is but a taster of the merchant’s offerings, for you will have entered the world of Jimmy Buttons.
I came to this realisation five years ago when, for the first time, I found myself shuffling in between boxes of buttons, beads, ribbons, buckles and chains. Sequins spilled out from high shelves, and among the chaos of rhinestones and feathers, I saw a girl crouched down, rifling through a bucket of trimmings.
As I went to pay for my finds, Jimmy himself peeked out from behind the counter, his nose barely grazing the benchtop. After insisting that I pay in cash, he pointed towards the mess of long blonde hair that was still huddled in the corner. Leaning in, he whispered, “Do you know who that is?”. I shook my head.
He took my receipt, covered it with his hand and scribbled something down, before folding it closed and sliding it to me saying, “Before long, you will know.”
I left and opened Jimmy’s note to find a name: Karla Laidlaw.
Now, it seems everyone in Melbourne knows that name. Starving university students, It Girls and It Gays, butch lesbians and their male counterparts, straight men with artistic proclivities – all can be found wearing Karlaidlaw’s signature Spider Pants. Her web extends far past Melbourne’s Inner North, with a sprawling fanbase drawn to the singular vision of one woman.
At 31, the designer boasts two brick-and-mortars: her North Melbourne flagship and studio, and a shop front in Fitzroy. The Karlaidlaw range spans 10 product categories, from bags, bottoms and bomber jackets, to KL-branded playing cards. Her 40,000 social media followers have just become privy to the extension of her accessory line, now including belts, beanies and bras.
It’s at this moment in her journey that I visit her North Melbourne studio, located just off Errol Street. Her hair is much shorter than the girl I remember from Jimmy Buttons, and her smile is disarming in its warmth. I follow her to the back of her studio, passing through a room packed tight with industrial sewing machines, manned by an all-female team. “Can I get you some tea?” she asks.
I sit there, taking in the rolls of fabric and pattern paper resting against shelves crammed with stock. Sketches and swatches hang from the walls, while pencils, pens and pins sprawl out over her desk. Who is this person?
“Who am I, as a person?” she repeats, as if to gather her thoughts. “I guess I’m quite a friendly person, I would say. I’m curious, I’m quite kind and I don’t stress too much, and I like to have fun. I also work hard.” She responds like a true workaholic, a title she freely accepts. “I think the sad truth is, when I ask myself, ‘Who am I?’, I’m only just starting to figure that out again.
She turns back to me. “Did I ask you if you wanted tea?” Another visitor passes through the room. “This is Miles. This is my rock,” Karla says, brushing the man’s arm. She is, naturally, referring to her partner of eight years. “We’re married – without a ring.” Speaking over her shoulder to Miles, who rummages around the kitchen, Karla muses, “I’m trying to describe who I am, but I feel like I’ve been so attached to the brand for so long.” Miles interrupts: “You’re your mum.”
thing,” she says, gesturing to the stacks of clothing. “So there was a confidence that I backed in myself.”
That’s not to say she hasn’t made mistakes. “If you make a mistake, you cry in the shower for a little bit, then you get out – alright, we keep going.”
She speaks with self-assuredness, humble yet firm in her achievements – a quality not taught in schools. “I didn’t actually get into RMIT [one of Australia’s top design schools]. Look at me now.”
“From six in the morning to nine at night, I was just making Spider Pants . It was crazy . ”
“I’m actively trying to hang out with my friends and hang out with my family because I’m finally ahead.” The studio is a season in front, working on Summer ’25, set to be completed by June. “I’m finally not chasing my tail anymore,” she tells me.
At this moment, a seamstress peers around the door frame. “We’re gonna hem the pants that are on the table at the front.” Karla instructs: “All of them. They’ll have the inseam on the notes.”
“My parents are in the rag trade. So I’ve grown up around it,” Karla concedes. “I’ve always wanted to be a fashion designer. My great-great-grandpa started Hard Yakka.” Indeed he did – in the 1930s, just a suburb over in Brunswick, working out of his parents’ house to create workwear. The term ‘hard yakka’, of course, refers to the Aussie slang for ‘hard work’.
In 2019, Karla followed in her family’s footsteps and launched her own brand, working out of her mum’s garage. “From six in the morning to nine at night, I was just making Spider Pants. It was crazy.” That same tenacity, inherited as much as it was self-forged, has shaped her path ever since. “I know I’m good at this
When I ask about her design practice, Karla beams. “My process usually starts with fabrics. I love sourcing and drawing. We were just overseas looking at samples. But I go to Jimmy’s all the time for trims. Jimmy is a Fitzroy legend, he has helped me get to where I am.”
There’s a sentimentality in the way Karla describes Jimmy – a spiritual kinship. “A trade of a sandwich or some of Nonna’s lasagne will help sweeten a deal. He’s an old-school trader, which reminds me of how many older generations operate, and I feel at home when I’m there.”
I overhear a distant voice in the hallway, it draws closer and explodes into the room: “The star has arrived!” It’s Manola, Karla’s mother.
“I love your top,” she says to Karla, who, naturally, is wearing her own design. “Can I get a discount?” This selfproclaimed Italian drama queen is as witty as she is tender. Speaking about her daughter, she tells me, “We’re different but we’re the same. It’s hard to explain.”
Their bond is obvious. “We’re quite close. We believe in each other, for a start,” Manola says. Last October, the pair partnered to produce a limited ready-to-wear range presented at Melbourne Fashion Week, a collaboration that Manola tells me was a natural process. “She allows me to be me. I allow her to be her… then, bang, magic happens.” She continues, “I’m a thousand years old and I’m still learning.” She pauses. “Have you been offered tea?”
Manola is steadfast in her advice: “Be you. Do it with conviction. Don’t let the noise dictate you. Because as soon as you believe in yourself, the world is your oyster. A lot of people feel they’ve gotta be in the cliquey group, and you’ve got to look a certain way, be a certain way. It ends up being robotic, but if you do you, people just wanna be around you.”
“You’re not trying to sell to the ‘scene’, they have to decide what’s cool,” she asserts. And the people have spoken. In Clifton Hill, I spot two girls wearing matching Circus Pants, albeit in different colourways. In Carlton, a young woman in Karla’s Tiger Pants. In Melbourne city, a couple have the Orto Hoodie nestled between their bodies as they hold hands. When I ask each about their purchase, the verdict is unanimous: she’s a “cool designer”.
Reflecting on her daughter’s success, Manola stutters, “I, I, I, I’m just blown away. I always believed in her, even from those humbling days in the garage... You just gotta keep striving, keep striving.” Hard yakka.
Karla, a designer who has come to define this moment in Melbourne’s sartorial history, is not just a product of her time. She’s the inheritor of something much older and far deeper – a self-assuredness beyond her years. She speaks the language of the rag traders as it has been taught to her. Karla’s relationship with Jimmy is one example of her appreciation for the work and wisdom of past generations; the relationship she has with her mother is another.
In Karla, there’s something quintessentially Australian – a promise this country has used to motivate laggards and go-getters alike: hard yakka. The sweat and care that shape her practice and person don’t speak to her contemporaries, they echo her predecessors. It’s a survival instinct: succeed by the skin of your teeth, have a fair crack and “If it fails, it fails.” She didn’t fail, she is succeeding. And in doing so, Karla Laidlaw serves as reassurance that even today, hard yakka can pay off.
MADEBYADHEL top, URTE KAT
shoes, CARYS NORWOOD hat stylist’s own top, tights and belt
PHOTOGRAPHER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jess Brohier PRODUCTION AND CASTING Alt-House PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Jaime Brohier LIGHTING TECHNICIAN Mathew Stott LIGHTING ASSISTANT Johnny de Silva and Emily Crowe STYLIST Sabrina Raso STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Chelsea Nguyen MOVEMENT DIRECTION MaggZ SET DESIGN Helena Inez Abapo HAIR Jordan Hallewell MAKEUP Meg McConville MODELS Giovanna and Jemma at IMG Models
PAGE
THIS
KOURH dress, CAMELIA FARHOODI x NA-KD shoes and bag, SZADE sunglasses stylist’s own tights and earrings
OPPOSITE PAGE
WYNN HAMLYN dress, URTE KAT dress (worn underneath), MATEA GLUŠČEVIĆ shoes, KARLAIDLAW gloves, BAOBEI earrings, stylist’s own bag
THIS PAGE KARLAIDLAW top and skirt, unbranded skirt from SWOP (worn underneath), WESTERN AFFAIR shoes, stylist’s own socks and earrings OPPOSITE PAGE KARLAIDLAW bra and coat, CAMELIA FARHOODI x NA-KD shoes, stylist’s own skirt
ROMBAUT shoes, XANTHE FICARRA necklace, DINOSAUR DESIGNS rings and earrings, stylist’s own socks
WYNN HAMLYN shorts and top, GANNI shoes stylist’s own tights
Words by Lara Daly
Photography by Robyn Daly
There’s something witchy about spritzing on a perfume before heading out in pursuit of romance. Nothing has the power to seduce – or repulse – quite like fragrance. But what makes a scent seductive?
Smell triggers our memory receptors more than any of our other senses. Spray paint fumes and mildew remind me of my first sharehouse, Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen takes me to the hot tent of a New Year’s kiss, Calvin Klein One and cigarettes conjure an ex without a bed frame. It’s funny how the scents we used to find seductive can sour overnight.
Using perfume to attract a lover has to be the most famous olfactory objective in history. Cleopatra was said to have had her own perfume workshop and apparently, she’d rub her mouth with solid perfume before kissing a lover, hoping the scent would force him to think of her after they parted. Legend has it that she even had the sails of her barge drenched in perfume before sailing out to meet her lover, Mark Antony. Huge queen move.
“Fragrance has been used as a tinder to fan the fire of desire for centuries,” writes American perfumer Mandy Aftel in her book, Essence and Alchemy. Age-old stories from around the world speak to the role of scent in attraction. In ancient Jerusalem, young women would put myrrh and balsam in their shoes and walk about the marketplace. If they saw a young man they fancied, they’d kick their feet, spurting the perfume towards him as a way of flirting. In 17th-century England, certain aromatics such as musk, ambergris and frankincense were considered to be sexually stimulating.
Mandy’s book tells of many more. In the Amazon, she writes, Yanomami men carry sachets of fragrant powders that supposedly “make women tumble into their arms” and in the highlands of New Guinea, “shamans say incantations over ginger leaves, which are thought to lend allure to the man who rubs them on his face and body”. Look at any modern cologne advertisement, the same narrative is implied: man smells good, man attracts beautiful lady.
I had my first encounter with a ‘flirtatious fragrance’ when I was nine years old. A birthday present from my older sister’s friend, it came in a pink-tinted bottle with ‘So…? Kiss
Me’ scribbled next to a red lipstick smooch. It’s since been discontinued, but Fragrantica.com tells me this 2004 vintage opened with blackcurrant and pineapple notes, drying down to musk and vanilla. For a whole summer, I’d spritz my new perfume over my pot-bellied, tankini-clad body and dream of running into Seth Cohen from The O.C
There’s something witchy about spritzing your pulse points with fragrance before heading out in pursuit of romance –imaginary or not. But what exactly makes a scent ‘flirtatious’? Well, it depends on who you ask. Before PerfumeTok and Fragrantica existed, writers and psychologists tried to explain the role of scent in our sensual imaginations.
Neurologist Sigmund Freud believed the nose was related to the sexual organs and therefore, he considered the loss of smell to be a major cause of mental illness. French poet Charles Baudelaire suggested that it wasn’t just the perfume a woman wore, but the natural scent of her body that made her smell ‘lustily musky’. American writer Henry Miller (a certified freak) took this idea a step further, describing how “distinctly pleasurable, distinctly memorable” he found the smell of a woman’s genitals – a scent Gwyneth Paltrow famously captured and poured into a wax candle in 2020.
Theories aside, there’s science behind what Baudelaire and Miller were writing about: pheromones, coming from the Greek pherin (to transfer) and hormōn (to excite). Pheromones are the chemical substances produced in the body that trigger a biological response, often sexual, in members of the same species.
It (sort of) explains why ‘vabbing’, the practice of wearing your vaginal juices as perfume, became a trend on TikTok a few years ago, and why civet, an ingredient extracted from the anal glands of exotic cats, has such a strong erotic reputation in perfumery – it was used in Chanel N°5 up until 1998.
“A blooming bush of jasmine might evoke memories of falling in love for some, but make others feel homesick or heartbroken.”
These animalistic, pheromone-inspired notes are having a moment in niche perfumery. I was curious to ask Jessica Tate, co-owner of Lore Perfumery in Melbourne, about Sécrétions Magnifiques, a polarising fragrance by Etat Libre d’Orange that smells a bit like sweat and semen. “We get all kinds of reactions! Being inspired by bodily scents, this fragrance is like the ultimate pheromone scent. You’re either here for it or repulsed,” she says.
I fall into the latter category. But if you’re looking to weed out the faint-hearted and attract someone with the same ‘nose’ as you, perhaps it’s your potion.
While more risqué smells are on the rise (a new local label, Örök Fragrance, takes its inspiration from Melbourne’s gay club scene), Jessica, along with the buyers for some of Australia’s largest beauty retailers, like Mecca and Adore Beauty, agree the overpowering trend right now is gourmand. This category encompasses edible notes – think vanilla, juicy stonefruit and salted caramel.
While less on the nose than Sécrétions Magnifiques, is there still a connection between gourmands and seduction? “Absolutely,” says Jessica. “People want to smell good enough to eat, and these fragrances are generally universally popular and enjoyed.”
Many of Lore’s customers come in specifically looking for a sexy scent, Jessica tells me. “They may have a date coming up, they may have just started a new relationship and want a scent to mark the occasion, they may have just ended a relationship, and thus need a new seductive scent,” she says. “We’ve had a proposal in-store while buying fragrance before, we’ve even had a customer break up with their boyfriend in-store, because he didn’t like the scent she was obsessed with! We’ve seen it all when it comes to fragrance and seduction.”
As Mandy Aftel points out in her research, context is often what makes a scent truly alluring. When I think about the fragrances that intrigue me the most, I tend to agree: they set a scene. Byredo’s Tobacco Mandarin – a distinctly darker juice
than the brand’s bestsellers – reminds me of the freshly burnt citrus peel in a negroni, sipped in a smoky tavern opposite a lover. The rich vanilla amber accord of Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Oud Satin Mood makes me feel like a glamorous layabout in satin sheets. Perdrisât’s Nightstand, a symphony of wisteria, lilac and musk, captures the feeling of fleeing a garden party to go home and do your skincare routine – great for when you want to romanticise your own company.
Is there a universal note of attraction? Probably not. A blooming bush of jasmine might evoke memories of falling in love for some, but make others feel homesick or heartbroken. So maybe it’s best to consider your own pleasure as the wearer, not just the intoxicating trail you want to leave behind.
“It always makes me a little sad when someone loves a fragrance but their friend or partner says something negative, so they talk themselves out of loving it,” says Jessica. “It’s like fashion: there are people who wear things to impress and be seductive and people who wear what empowers them, and that, as a result, makes them so sexy.”
PRODUCT CREDITS
PERDRISÂT Nightstand from SALOON, HERETIC PARFUM Dirty Vanilla EDP from LORE PERFUMERY, MAISON FRANCIS KURKDJIAN Oud Satin Mood EDP from MECCA, BYREDO Tobacco Mandarin Extrait de Parfum from MECCA, ETAT LIBRE D’ORANGE Sécrétions Magnifiques from LORE PERFUMERY
NAARM + NEW YORK CITY.
ROLLIE NATION DERBY CAMPAIGN, SHOT IN NYC.
Giulia Brugliera, Managing Editor
My approach to style is fairly minimal, more out of necessity than a preference for pared-back style. I simply don’t have the time to labour over my outfits. As a result, I’ve learnt the power of jewellery to lift an otherwise boring look. My favourites in rotation right now are my grandmother’s pearls and a huge brass bangle from Dinosaur Designs. Both give the illusion that my outfit was an intentional style choice, even if I’m wearing tracksuit pants and a jumper.
Lara Daly, Features Editor
‘Throw on a trench coat’ might be the most unoriginal fashion advice ever (show me one autumnal style story that doesn’t feature a khaki trench), but as soon as the cool change hits, I’m reaching for my Penny Sage coat daily. Knee-high boots are another easy outfit maker. Until I find the vintage Ann Demeulemeester boots of my dreams, the Tony Bianco Hayes style is a pretty close substitute.
The Fashion Journal team share the pieces they throw on to complete their look before walking out the door. Outfit makers, if you will.
Molly Griffin, Advertising and Partnerships Manager
Years ago, I scored a pale blue Acler trench coat for a steal from The Archive Place and it’s the first thing I reach for when the weather cools. My blue cashmere and wool knitted jumper from Henne is a close second – I wear it multiple times a week on its own, layered over a collared shirt or around my shoulders for a nice pop of colour. To top it off, the cost-per-wear on my red ballet flats by Sydney label LMS is down to the cent.
Daisy Henry, Assistant Editor
Some may say predictable, I say classic, but I’m never without a small pair of gold earrings. My favourites are my hoops from Vermeer Studio or Cleopatra’s Bling. I’ll add a pair of Velvet Canyon sunglasses to hide any of the previous night’s sins and, as we sink further into cool weather, I’ll throw any piece of fabric I can find across my shoulders for warmth (any jumper or cardigan can become a scarf if you will it). And voilà, the holy trinity.
